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This chapter describes a service learning (SL) project implemented in an upper-level undergraduate Cost Accounting course to enhance the coverage of costing concepts. Employing a variation of Lafond, Leauby, and Wentzel (2017) SL task, students actively gather cost data for a business venture by preparing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches which are then donated to a local soup kitchen. Comparison of scores on pre- and post-tests suggests that the SL assignment enhances students’ understanding of key cost accounting concepts. More specifically, improvements in mean post-test scores proved significantly greater in the experimental group after completion of the SL activity than in the control group. Feedback further suggests that students appreciated the opportunity to engage in SL by helping others less fortunate. Active SL tied to course objectives meets The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB, 2013) suggestions for honing students’ critical thinking skills, while also helping to instill SL values in future business leaders.

The subject area of the assignment is cost accumulation. This instructional tool enhances coverage of cost accumulation topics in graduate level Introductory to Management Accounting courses.

The assignment entails visiting a small business and interviewing the owner to learn about the company’s process for determining costs of products and/or services. Such active learning hones leadership and critical thinking skills by requiring students to employ interviewing and listening techniques as they act as business advisors to discuss cost accumulation processes with small business owners. The assignment provides flexibility since a range of business types can be used from a landscaping business operated out of one’s garage to a mid-size manufacturing company.

Students see how a small business accumulates costs and gain experience analyzing the effectiveness of cost accumulation systems and providing recommendations.

A list of supplementary materials is included, covering teaching notes, assessment data, and grading rubrics.

Student feedback suggests that students value the opportunity to engage in a realistic exercise that allows them to draw linkages between textbook material and the real world, while also acting in a consulting role to apply class concepts to small businesses. Furthermore, assessment data based on grading rubrics indicate that all students meet or exceed instructor expectations, thus increasing the viable use of this course project.

This research provides accounting-ethics authors and administrators with a benchmark for accounting-ethics research. While Bernardi and Bean (2010) considered publications in business-ethics and accounting’s top-40 journals this study considers research in eight accounting-ethics and public-interest journals, as well as, 34 business-ethics journals. We analyzed the contents of our 42 journals for the 25-year period between 1991 through 2015. This research documents the continued growth (Bernardi & Bean, 2007) of accounting-ethics research in both accounting-ethics and business-ethics journals. We provide data on the top-10 ethics authors in each doctoral year group, the top-50 ethics authors over the most recent 10, 20, and 25 years, and a distribution among ethics scholars for these periods. For the 25-year timeframe, our data indicate that only 665 (274) of the 5,125 accounting PhDs/DBAs (13.0% and 5.4% respectively) in Canada and the United States had authored or co-authored one (more than one) ethics article.

This instructional tool provides management accounting instructors with an efficient and practical way to teach the Balanced Scorecard using experiential learning. This exercise requires students to visit their college or university bookstore, meet with store managers, and develop a Balanced Scorecard for the business. Students address contemporary performance measurement issues in a simulated consulting engagement as they research industry trends, analyze store operations, interview employees, and prepare a written report for store management.

The requirements of this active learning assignment address many of the analytical, communication, and experiential competencies recommended in widely discussed calls for accounting education change. Instructors appreciate the convenience, practicality, and rigor offered by this exercise. Students value the opportunity to engage in a realistic exercise that allows them to draw upon their own consumer experiences. The authors used these materials in both undergraduate and graduate accounting courses, and received positive feedback from students and bookstore managers alike.

In this chapter, we illustrate the use of data envelopment analysis, an operations research technique, to analyze the financial performance of the seven largest retailers in the United States by benchmarking a set of financial ratios of a firm against its peers. Data envelopment analysis clearly brings out the firms that are operating more efficiently in comparison to other firms in the industry, and points out the areas in which poorly performing firms need to improve.

This chapter includes a citation analysis of the first 16 volumes of Advances in Accounting Education: Teaching and Curriculum Innovations (henceforth, Advances in Accounting Education). Using this analysis, we identified the top 20 articles of the 195 articles published. This analysis provides an understanding of the relative contribution and impact of the papers published in Advances in Accounting Education, and the information provides past authors with a measure of how their contributions compare with the contributions of other authors. Also, this analysis may be valuable for potential contributors who are developing a research topic in that it will enable them to identify the types of articles that have traditionally had the greatest impact.

We also identify the top 30 authors of the 383 who have published in the journal. This analysis not only gives feedback to the authors listed, but also helps accounting education researchers identify authors whose work may be relevant to their interests.

We report the research categories (issues) and methodologies used for all articles published from 1998 to 2015 in Advances in Accounting Education. We also compare the research issues and research methodologies used in Advances in Accounting Education to those in the Journal of Accounting Education and Issues in Accounting Education for the period 2006–2015. Authors considering submitting a manuscript to one of these journals can use this information to determine which journal might be the best fit for their work.